Jesus does not offer an opinion for He never uttered opinions. He never guessed; He knew, and He knows!
​A.W. Tozer
 
So far, I’ve tried to make the case that pre-premarital preparation can avoid a lot of problems after marriage.  I’ve emphasized that this preparation deals primarily with you, not the other person.  Why do I say that?  Because I’ve seen it many times: someone will talk extensively about their spouse’s problems.  They may even preface their whole talk with a statement like “I know I am part of the problem”.  But then on they go to explain what their spouse does wrong in detail. 

Their description of their spouse’s flaws, misbehaviors and issues may be 100 percent accurate.  But the problem is they can’t change their spouse.  I can’t change their spouse, their parents can’t, their friends can’t…, you get the picture.  The point is, we can’t change anyone other than ourselves, and even changing ourselves can be very difficult.  So, is there any hope? 

The answer is “yes”!  Jesus told his followers: “ ‘…with God, all things are possible’ (Mark 10:27, KJV).” That gives us hope that God is willing to work with us to help us change in ways He desires for us (also see I John 5:1).  Paul wrote about the transformation that can come to them by the influence of the Holy Spirit in a person’s life.  He encouraged them (and us) to “ ‘…put off your old self, which… is corrupt through deceitful desires, and [be] renewed in the spirit of your minds… after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness’ (Eph. 4:23-24 ESV).”  So, it is possible to change ourselves.

That brings me to the topic of spiritual foundations.  It’s a logical next step because I write from a Christian perspective.  I’m also writing primarily to Christian people.  So, I want to spend a little time on what it means to be a Christian.  This is because in my experience and from my belief in the Bible as truth, the Christian has an advantage in issues that involve who we are and who we are becoming.  The Christian has access to the power of God to change and grow (see II Cor. 13:4). That change and growth can help us to become a person who is a better spouse.  Paul illustrated this when he explained to the Galatian churches the difference between someone controlled by the Holy Spirit and someone controlled by their sinful human nature (Gal 5:19-26).  The person only controlled by their sinful nature will have inclinations toward fighting, jealousy, sexual promiscuity and fits of anger.  A person who is coming under the control of the Holy Spirit will become more loving, joyful, peaceful and self-controlled.  It’s not hard to see that a person who is controlled by the Holy Spirit is going to be easier to get along with than someone controlled by their sinful nature.

That last paragraph sounds good in theory.  But you might be saying, “Well, I’m a Christian but that doesn’t describe me!”  So, let’s define the word “Christian”.  The word “Christians” is first used in the Bible in Acts 11:26 to describe the disciples or followers of Jesus.  It’s arguable that following Jesus can look different depending on where you are in terms of sanctification and service.  But the Christian is a Christ follower.  By “follower” the Bible is indicating a person who will be with God and know Him (Mark 3:14, I Cor 1:9, Phil 3:10).  Thus, a disciple is one who is getting to know Jesus better and trying to become more like Him.  More about this next time.

A Summary of Boundaries in Marriage – Speaking the Truth in Love

My intent in doing these blogs is to introduce good resources for marriages and families.  In the current series about Boundaries in Marriage I’ve discussed what boundaries are and how they work.  I wanted to spend the rest of this entry going over some of the other boundary-related issues addressed in Cloud & Townsend’s book.  These are discussed below.

The requirement for the “oneness” that most of us want in relationships is two healthy individuals.  All of us need to overcome our tendency to think the world revolves around us to become emotionally healthy.  A healthy individual allows the person they love to have freedom in the relationship, not control.  An unhealthy person will assume they always need to be happy, and this will damage all of their relationships. 

Instead of this unhealthy mindset we need to make the following positive choices.  Choosing to love God, to love your spouse, to be honest, to be faithful, to be compassionate and forgiving, and to be holy will put your relationship on the path to being the best it can be.  When we love God, we are willing to obey Him, and He gives us reasons to stay together and the power to change.  When we love our spouse we identify with her to the point that we feel the effects of our behavior on her.  When we are honest with each other, we are more likely to talk about things that, though difficult, can lead us to greater intimacy.  When we are faithful to each other it will mean being sexually faithful and also faithful with our hearts.  When we are compassionate and forgiving, we are able to deal with the fact that both of us are not perfect.  When we choose holiness we are without blame, pure and whole, better able to pursue love and to get rid of things that get in love’s way.

There is always a danger of intruders in the marriage relationship.  Both spouses must diligently guard against the intrusions of such things as work, children, TV, in-laws, church, etc.  All marriages need outside support, and no marriage has all of the resources both partners will need, but be careful what outside supports you chose.  For example, the wife who confides more in her mother than in her husband is likely preventing growth in her relationship with her husband.  The husband who is overcommitted to his job (or ministry) is also damaging the relationship with the one he committed his life to.  It’s also very important to remember that parenting is temporary while marriage is supposed to be permanent. 

Cloud and Townsend identify several types of conflict including: sin of one spouse, immaturity or brokenness of one person, hurt feelings that are no one’s fault, and desires of one person versus the needs of the relationship.  They also describe some “rules” for how do deal with each type of conflict. 

When conflict involves the sin of one spouse, humility and grace are needed.  Then the offended spouse will be able to understand they are not better than the one who offended them.  But while we need to be soft on the person, it’s important to be hard on the issue. 

When conflict is due to the immaturity or brokenness of one partner, it will be necessary for the other partner to accept the reality of the situation, communicate support to their spouse, and develop a plan. 

When feelings are hurt but no one is to blame, develop a plan to avoid causing the hurts in the first place.  When there are conflicting desires, don’t moralize your own preference, and consider meet your spouse’s needs before your own.

If conflict is around the needs of one person versus the needs of the relationship, it’s good to remember that marriage needs to come first, but individual needs should also be considered. 

A final note on boundaries in marriage is that they can be misused.  Boundaries are not about escaping responsibility.  If a spouse doesn’t communicate when they have set boundaries but only enforces them, this is a misuse of boundaries.  Also, if the spouse who sets the boundaries isn’t willing to take ownership of their part of the problem, a misuse of boundaries has occurred. 

Overall, Boundaries in Marriage by Cloud and Townsend is a great resource for your marriage if you struggle with maintaining a sense of individual freedom and personal integrity in the marriage.  The authors do a great job of helping the reader apply Ephesians 4:15  (“… speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in all aspects into Him who is the head, even Christ,” NASB).  And that’s the way I want to summarize the concept so it’s easy for us to remember: Boundaries are about speaking the truth in love.  Here’s an example to help us with the overall concept.

Jay is a very structured person; he’s on time, on schedule and organized.  Terry is less so.  She’s very artistic and creative, and sometimes she gets so involved in the moment that all of her other responsibilities, commitments and obligations are forgotten.  Obviously, this is pretty frustrating to Jay, he’s been annoyed by it since they’ve been married and has nagged, criticized and complained about it over the 10 years they’ve been married.  But then he’d make excuses for her or try to prevent her (or both of them) from experiencing the consequences of her poor time management.  Finally someone directed him to a book on boundaries, and he decided to set up a boundary around this issue.  He realized he will have to speak the truth to Terry, but do it in a loving way.  So he came to Terry after dinner and asked if they could talk.  He knew this was about the lowest stress time in her day, and he chose it because they needed to have a hard conversation. 

Jay: “Terry, for the last few years I’ve nagged you a lot about trying to get places on time, and I’ve realized that’s not what I should be doing.  Even though I’ve said things and been upset with you, I’ve never stood up for what I wanted in this area.  But now I want to try something different.”

Terry: “I still don’t think it’s that big of a deal, but what are you going to do?”

Jay: “It is a big deal for me, and it’s inconsiderate of others.  So I’ve decided that when it’s time to leave for anything we’re planning to go to I’m going to leave if you’re ready or if you’re not.”

Terry didn’t like the idea, but Jay realized he needed to give her the freedom to experience the consequences of being irresponsible with her time management.  The test came a few days later when they were supposed to go to dinner with friends.  They were scheduled to meet at 6:00, and it took 15 minutes to get there.  At 5:45 Jay saw that Terry was still working away in her studio, so he left for dinner without her.  When Terry finally realized that Jay had left she was too embarrassed to join them for dinner and chose to stay home by herself.  This kind of thing happened several times over the next few weeks, with Terry opting to stay home each time. 

But the game changer was an invite to Terry’s parents’ house about a month later.  They were supposed to come for lunch on Saturday at noon.  Since they lived an hour away, Jay was ready to go at 11:00, but Terry was in the middle of a project and clearly hadn’t thought at all about getting ready to go.  Jay didn’t want to go by himself and he didn’t want both of them to drive that far, but he knew he needed to maintain this boundary so he left.  When Terry got to her parents’ house (two hours later) Jay and her parents were as kind to her as ever.  Terry’s sisters weren’t.  After that, Terry got an appointment calendar app on her phone to warn her in advance of scheduled events. 

Since then Terry has seen that it was good for their relationship for Jay to set up a boundary around this issue.  They are having less conflict about it, but also Jay is more pleasant to be around because he’s not as frustrated about her poor time management.

In this example, Jay suffered in silence some of the time, but found that his frustration was often coming out as the nagging and complaining.  After setting the boundary, he saw that it was actually not loving to prevent Terry from experiencing the consequences of her irresponsibility.  This had prevented her from growing and experiencing victory in an area where she had felt like a failure for years.  His boundary helped her develop her own boundary.

So if you have identified yourself in any of the information I’ve shared, pick up a copy of Boundaries in Marriage by Cloud and Townsend.  You may find that setting boundaries with yourself and in your marriage is one of the best things you’ll ever do for your relationship.

One more blog on Boundaries in Marriage.

To this point what’s been covered in the blog/videos is how boundaries in marriages can be used to help both partners have a voice in the relationship.  But when we emphasize this, there’s plenty of potential for misunderstanding.  I think the greatest potential misunderstanding we have is to interpret boundaries as a method of getting our spouse to do what we want.  But boundaries are first about us. 

Here’s an example.  The couple’s fictional, but the issue is real.  When Bill and Brenda got married, Bill wasn’t really ready to “leave and cleave”.  He came from a tight-knit family while Brenda was more independent.  Over the next three years, Bill consistently made the decision to be with his family on holidays, vacations and lots of other times.  When they would talk about their plans for the weekend or the vacation, Brenda would tell Bill she wanted to be with her family, or she wanted to do something with friends, but Bill would always come up with a reason they had to be with his family.  Brenda didn’t like it, but didn’t want to make waves so she silently endured as her frustration grew.  She would become more resentful, sullen and withdrawn each time they were with his family.  Bill felt hurt and frustrated by the change in his normally cheerful and sweet wife.  This was becoming a big area of conflict in their marriage.

Finally, Brenda made a decision.  She took last year’s calendar and added up all of the times they had been with Bill’s family and all of the times they had done what she wanted to do.  Then she and Bill had a talk.  She told him “I love you and I’m willing to spend some time with your family.  But over the last year we were with your family 46 weekends and both of our vacations.  That shows me that my desires for what I do with our free time aren’t being honored.  So this year I am willing to be with your family 23 weekends and for one of our vacations.  The other times I will to choose where we go or what we do.  If you choose to be with your family more than this I won’t come along.”

As you might guess, this wasn’t very popular with Bill.  But over the next year Brenda stuck to her commitment.  When Bill made it clear he wasn’t going to limit the number of weekends he was with his family, Brenda began taking some weekends for herself.  And before long Bill realized he missed being with his wife, especially since she was becoming less resentful, sullen, and withdrawn.  He decided to work out a mutually agreeable schedule with her for their time off.

In this story Brenda established some boundaries in the relationship, but she began by establishing boundaries in herself.  She didn’t want to stand up to Bill and she didn’t want to be without him during her time off.  But she realized that she needed to do these things for the good of the relationship.  Also, consistent with Jesus’ words in Matthew 7:5, Brenda needed to deal with her own issues before she could help someone else.  She needed to be proactive in addressing her resentment and anger and her fear of conflict so that she could help her husband.  She needed to work on a boundary within herself before she worked on a boundary with her husband.

In the story, what Brenda did was to take ownership of her life.  She had to take Cloud and Townsend’s advice: “We must become more deeply concerned about our own issues than our spouse’s.”  

Being more deeply concerned about my own issues moves the opportunity to change back to me.  As long as I am focused on my wife’s problems, and how she needs to change I am conveniently overlooking my own problems.  And I’m not able to change her anyhow; the person I have the most ability to change is me.  But even more than my own abilities, my best opportunity for personal change and growth comes from acknowledging to God that I’m not able to do it on my own, and that I need Jesus’ help.

Another good effect of setting boundaries on ourselves is that we free our spouse to choose to grow.  In the story of Bill and Brenda, as long as Brenda went along with Bill’s immature approach to separating from his family of origin, he didn’t have to choose between his family and her.  After she set the boundary of limiting the time with his family, Bill can choose to mature (separate from his parents).  

So setting boundaries with ourselves (choosing and doing things we may prefer not to do) for the good of our relationships will often allow for improvements in our marriage.  But I should point out that our spouse may not choose the path of growth.  What then?  You have still set up a boundary to make the relationship better for you, and you have grown from doing it.  Continue to pray, God isn’t through with any of us yet.

I hope to finish up boundaries next time.

Thanks for coming to the website, and now I’m back to marriage issues.

I began this series of blogs and videos by talking about how to do communication better in marriage.  Then I transitioned into boundaries in marriage by talking about having a spouse who doesn’t want to try work on the relationship.  So far we’ve talked about boundaries as a method of understanding what we own in the relationship.

For example, I knew someone (I’ll call the person “Jane”) who had regularly treated me in a belittling way.  After most of the times we were together I would leave feeling like Jane didn’t value me at all and led others to devalue me too.  For a long time I struggled with this.  I would often wonder what my problem was, why didn’t Jane treat me with respect and kindness?  After all, that’s how I tried to treat her!  Why didn’t I seem to measure up in Jane’s eyes? 

I thought how Jane treated me was my problem – that I was being touchy.  That prevented me from talking to just about everyone else in my life about it.  But I prayed about it a lot, and what the Lord showed me was that Jane was a part of the problem, too.

If I could have talked to them, Cloud and Townsend might have reminded me that boundaries aren’t about the other person, they are about self-control.  To quote them: “Boundaries help us to know just where someone’s control begins and ends”. 

In my example, I needed to accept that I am not able to control the way Jane acts toward me.  But I am in control of how I respond.  I could use my words as a boundary to establish what I will or will not tolerate.  But instead, I had let my lack of words become a way that I let go of my boundaries.   And my loss of boundaries came at a price.

The price was that I began to resent Jane.  I spent way too much mental energy dwelling on how she had treated me, about what a terrible person she was.  I also didn’t want to be around her.  In social settings, I would try to find ways to avoid her or avoid the entire situation.  That harmed relationships I had with others.

What she did to me was unkind.  But what I did to myself was probably more damaging.  I had not taken the counsel of the Bible in Matthew 18:15.  There Jesus tells us if someone “sins against us” we should talk to them about it individually.  He goes on to say that if we do this and they listen we have “won [our] brother”.   Because I didn’t put up a boundary by saying to Jane “I don’t like it when you…” I allowed myself to experience a number of negative things. I gave myself the opportunity to be stressed when we were together.  I put myself in the position of not enjoying some social situations.  I also distanced myself from her, allowing our relationship to be damaged, and she didn’t know why.  It really wasn’t fair to her or me.  And it all happened because I didn’t maintain my boundaries in that relationship.

So how do we maintain boundaries in relationships?  Cloud and Townsend suggest several tools:

•     using appropriate words,
  
•     telling the truth,
  
•     establishing consequences,
  
•      keeping emotional or physical distance from the other
  
•      involving other people, and
  
•      setting time parameters.
  

I’ve already talked about using appropriate words.  I also wasn’t telling the truth when I didn’t inform Jane that her actions hurt me.   An example of establishing consequences would be cancelling a credit card when the spouse continues to overspend.  Establishing emotional distance can be necessary if trust has been broken and physical distance may be necessary if abuse is involved.  Involving other people can be helpful if one person’s boundaries have been compromised repeatedly, to give the offended person some backbone. Finally, an example of setting time parameters would be to decide that a contentious conversation will only go on for one hour.

There’s a lot more to talk about regarding boundaries in relationships, we’ll pick up on this again next time.

Thanks for coming to the GCC website.  I’m taking a break from the videos and blog posts on communication to do this personal message to the visitors to my site. 

When I first started the journey that would lead to a degree in counseling it was because I saw the devastation that was occurring in our community because of the breakup of families.  After prayer and advice from others I chose to focus on marriage counseling because it seemed like the best way to make a difference.  I thought it would help protect children who are victimized and help parents pass their faith to the next generation.

So over the last two years I have spent a lot of hours counseling with couples (individuals too).  And my observation is similar to what I’ve heard from other professionals: too many couples come to marriage counseling with a relationship that is DOA.  I understand that God is in the resurrection business, but I also know that he allows us to make our own choices.  And I also know that there is a lot of wisdom in the old proverb that “An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure”.  So I have thought for some time that it would be wiser to help marriages by working on the “ounce of prevention” instead of the “pound of cure”.

That’s where the website blog and videos came in.  I saw a counseling webinar on the power of social media in communication, and decided to try it.  The idea was to provide teaching tools for couples whose relationships are in trouble but not at the breaking point.  To try to reach couples with preventative teaching before their relationships are in crisis.  So I’ve produced and posted videos at the rate of about one a month for all of 2014. 

But the problem I have with this internet-based medium is that it can be pretty impersonal.  I get information about how many people visit my website from the company that hosts it.  I also get information about how many people see, click on, share, and like the content I put on or link from Facebook.  What that doesn’t tell me, though, is if anything I wrote or talked about was helpful.  If anyone actually used the concepts I’ve talked about in the videos. 

The question about the effectiveness of the information I’ve produced was especially in my mind when I began talking to people about support for the ministry.  It made me wonder: “Am I being a good steward of the money that God has given me through those who support this ministry?”  Writing takes time, so does putting internet movies together.  Is the time I’m spending on this a good investment?  Would it be better to explore some other options?

It seems to me that the best way to answer these questions is to ask you, the visitors of my website. 

I’m not fishing for compliments here, I just want some honest feedback.  For example, some time ago I talked to someone who had watched some of my earlier videos.  They had some constructive criticism about the way I did the filming.  I valued that information and tried to make adjustments because of it.

When I watch the videos I made longer ago I think that I could have done better.  I want to, going forward.  But I also want to have a better understanding about the effectiveness of these videos and blog posts.  So would you be willing to give me some feedback?  Topics to discuss?  Things you think would be helpful?  What you like or don’t?

If you see this on Facebook you can message me.  If you view it on my website, just click the letter icon at the top right of the page.  My phone number is also in the contact page of the website, you can text as well.  The message, email or text will be only seen by me.


In summary, I value your input.  It will help me understand where I focus my efforts in the future.